Where The Darkness Treads
by Black Star5
Summary: Set after happenings in Oogie's Revenge, but you don't have to finish the game to read. There are, and have been, more than just Seven Holidays so what happened to the others? Can they be restored?
1. Raiders of the lost cabinet

Disclaimer. If I owned this, do you think I'd be wasting my time on a FAN site?

This story has a good few AOC's (_Author's Original Characters_) but they **aren't **Mary Sues, and most of them don't have romantic interests in the original characters. Hopefully you'll find this terribly interesting. This takes place after Oogie's Revenge (the videogame), but it's not exactly necessary that you complete the game to read this. It just helps a little with the visuals in some places.

-:-

All was finally well in Halloween Town. Oogie Boogie had been taken care of, again, and preparations for a Boogie-less Halloween were nearly finished. The town residents were humming that age-old tune that kept their world in rhythm and, it seemed, that the three best trick or treaters were going to let people get on with their celebration in their own kind of peace. Unfortunately, the only reason this was, was because the three I'm speaking of where currently at a loss. Not that they would ever let anyone know that.

Up in the tree house, Lock, Shock and Barrel were usually at each other's throats. Since Boogie had been defeated again, this had become even more of a regular occurrence, and each time it was getting a little more violent. Shock currently had Lock pinned to the ground and was beating on his masked face.

"You're so STUPID!" She insisted on emphasizing this statement with a pound on the face for every syllable.

Lock finally got his leg free and kicked her away. He got up and grabbed for a weapon to go after his attacker. "If I'm so stupid, how come you're the one who believed me!"

Shock jumped back up, wielding her broom, ready to knock some sense into him. "What does that matter! You're still stupid and you always will be!" It was childish, but according to the angry glint in Lock's eyes, it hit the mark.

They were about to engage in combat yet again when the door to the playroom opened and Barrel part walked, part stumbled in under the weight of the bag he was holding. He pulled out his favorite kind of lollipop and began licking it as he looked around the newly "redecorated" playroom. Apparently, throwing knives stuck in the walls was the new theme.

"What happened in here?" he asked as though he were asking what they were having for dinner.

"It's none of your business!" Shock screeched. She brandished the broom again and pointed at the bag Barrel was holding. "How much did you get this time?"

"Barely any. It's almost Halloween. Everybody's either running out or stocking up for the rush. We might have to wait for a week to get anymore." Barrel dumped the contents of the bag on the floor for his siblings' inspection. Candy spilled out, but it was only a small mountain this time. Usually they were able to fill a garbage sack. This time they only got enough for a paper bag. But Barrel was right. This was dry season.

"So what's going on?" Barrel asked again. Shock crossed her arms over her chest, pretending to be absorbed in how much candy would have to last them for a week.

"I tricked her into going down into Oogie's old lair." Lock smirked at Shock's "concentration" on the candy as, beneath her mask, she was blushing red. He'd told her he'd seen Oogie hide a stash of candy down there somewhere. In the state they were in, they needed it more than the dead Oogie would. She'd called Lock a chicken and gone down there by herself, only to return a few minutes later panting, shaking and looking like she'd had a fight with a lawnmower.

Shock thwacked him with her broom and began sorting out the candy into three piles. Three even piles. She was a trick or treater, but she couldn't bring herself to take food from her brothers' mouths when they needed it. Lock noticed the piles, but didn't notice the sad glint in Shock's eyes.

"Hey! You're pile is bigger than mine!" He picked up a plunger and waved it in her face. He smiled inside. That would get her riled up for sure! "Give me that one!"

Shock clenched her teeth and her fists. Lock had to consciously keep himself from backing up when she growled. Then she sighed.

"You think this is funny, don't you, Lock?" He was caught off guard by the strange, tired emotion behind this statement. Why wasn't she yelling at him? They always battled it out when it came to stuff like this. What was she doing?

"If you don't give it to me, I'll take it!" Lock threatened. Inside, he was begging her to get angry, hit him, kick him or call him a name. This thing in her eyes that he could see through her mask was scarier than any of the above.

Instead, she pushed the piled toward him with yet another sigh. "I'm not hungry anyway," was all she murmured in response as she trudged up to her room. She removed her mask to reveal a bored expression.

Barrel, lollypop stick hanging out his mouth, and Lock stood there looking at each other for a minute before shrugging their shoulders. "Girls."

Later that night, Shock could hear noises from down below the tree house. These weren't the noises of wildlife, she realized. These were the sounds of Oogie Boogie because he was tired of waiting for them to come back down and start sewing him up again. She shut her eyes tightly and listened, trying to come up with some other explanation as to why the pipe to Oogie's lair was making so much noise when there was, supposedly, no one down there.

She hadn't told Lock why she'd come up as such a mess. He assumed that it was one of Oogie's old casino traps down there. Shock hadn't gone into the main room, like they usually had to report to Oogie. The casino brought back too many bad memories of threats and punishments that she wanted to forget. She'd gone around to Oogie's personal chambers, where she thought a stash of candy or something edible was most likely to be.

That's when she noticed an old cabinet off to the side with a lock on it. I didn't look like it belonged in Oogie's home because it didn't seem to have anything to do with bugs, cards or gambling like most of Oogie's furniture. It looked like something from that doctor's home, Shock realized, but she didn't remember taking it. She'd tried to force it open. That's when the booby trap had fired. Two bug shaped flying saucers came after her, and every time they touched her, their razor-like wings would cut at her. It had brought back some bad memories of punishments, and Shock had been very angry at Lock for tricking her into going down there.

She'd blown up at him. That wasted a lot of energy, but that's why they fought. They had too much energy to waste now, with Oogie Boogie gone. But the problem of getting food and taking care of each other had finally zapped so much of Shock's energy that she couldn't keep up with her old ways right now. In a week, she reasoned, she'd have enough sugar in her system to boost her personality back to it's old ways. In a week, it would be Halloween. They weren't invited to the town's celebration, of course. They never were. But they had no interest in causing the usual trouble in town this year. This year they'd be scrambling to as many houses as they could, literally begging for candy. They hadn't discussed it, not that they would, but inside, that's what they all knew was going on.

They had to have that candy to survive. After Halloween, the shelves would be empty for a while, and it was a rare occasion that they didn't have to steal when the shelves in the town shops were full. Though, everyone was beginning to notice that stealing was the biggest trouble they'd caused in the last few weeks. After Halloween, they'd have to do something big to keep their reputations from decomposing from town troublemakers to common thieves.

There, thought Shock, that noise again! She sat up in her bed and looked toward the door that led down the hallway and to the main playroom. The room where the pipe was. She tried to convince herself she'd heard something from another direction. Maybe one of the boys fell out of bed.

Clang!

Nope. Not even Barrel falls out of bed repeatedly like that. She went to the playroom and tip toed over to the pipe, swearing that if Lock was behind this, she'd strangle him. She tentatively stuck her head inside and listened. She could hear voices. She strained her ears…

"Hey, Shock! Stop making all that noise!" She jumped and hit her head on the top of the pipe, causing a long, loud CLANK! She turned around, rubbing her head.

Lock and a very sleepy looking Barrel where looking at her in suspicion and interest. "What are you…?" Shock covered Barrel's mouth and put a finger to her bluish lips.

She then turned and tiptoed back to the pipe. The voices had stopped. The three sat and waited for five minutes and were about to go back to bed, when they heard it. Plain as day.

"I think we need to go, Joker. There's somebody up there." It was a girl's voice. Maybe Shock's age. They could hear someone taking footsteps, but that wasn't what caught Shock's attention. She could hear bells. Faintly, but they were there.

"Don't worry, Jesta. I'm sure they're still asleep. The skeleton boy falls out of his bed often in the middle of the night. I'm sure they don't know we're here." This one was a boy. Lock's age more than Barrel's from the sound of his voice. "Keep searching. We have to find it."

Shock turned to the other two with wide eyes. Lock nodded before donning his mask and grabbed Barrel. They headed for the lift. These visitors were about to learn that they were unwelcome. And not in the good way.

They reached the bottom to find Oogie's old lair all lit up with his famous blacklights. They stayed in the shadows waiting for their prey to become visible. Lock's eyes scanned the room and found something foreign. It was a three pronged jester's hat. It was sticking up from behind Oogie's roulette torture table.

"Jesta! I found a trap door, here!" The hat moved, causing the bells on each tip to jingle.

Barrel heard a muffled reply from the left and began heading toward the corridor it came from. His siblings didn't notice. They were watching the hat in fascination. Nobody in Halloween Town wore a hat like that. Lock began circling from one side and Shock went around the other way.

"Jesta? Did you hear me? I said I found something!" Another muffled answer. The creature poked it's head up and Shock finally got a good look at him.

It was a young boy. And he was only a little younger than Lock. Or at least, he looked that age. His face was a pasty white and he had two marks on his eyes like a harlequin. His outfit was done in the same green and purple fabric with gold on the hems as his hat. He began looking around the room and spotted Lock first.

For a moment, he just stood there, stock still. Lock had to blink to determine that he was still there, he was so still. Joker slowly slid his foot out to the trapdoor, barely moving more than a centimeter at a time. Shock was moving the same speed towards him. Lock smiled cruelly as he noticed.

"You made a big mistake, breaking in here."

Meanwhile, Barrel had stumbled upon an interesting sight, indeed. He walked down the corridor to Oogie's quarters, where Shock had been before. But now, instead of Shock, there was only a giant spidery cocoon with Jesta's head, from her eyes up, sticking out the bottom in the corner of the room near a cabinet that didn't look like it belonged.

Barrel turned his head so that he was looking at the girl almost eye to eye. "There are booby traps in here."

The two neon green eyes glared at him from their pasty white face. The cocoon began rocking and the girl began screaming at him, but through the spider thread, it sounded like mumbling.

Barrel smiled behind his mask. "Just thought you might like to know." He removed his mask and licked on the lollypop he'd pulled from his pocket moments before, just staring at her.

Her glare became even darker. Obviously she didn't like this game. Barrel didn't understand why. He and his siblings often took turns being the torture victim, and they loved being the torturers. He didn't get the chance to be the one torturing very often though. He leaned against the cabinet, planning to prolong this poor creature's suffering.

Suddenly, two UFO looking bugs darted out of the darkness behind the girl. She shrieked again and tried to duck the rest of her head into the cocoon. Barrel slammed himself against the floor as the bugs flew past, into the darkness of another corner of the room.

Jesta let out an involuntary shriek as she felt the cocoon shudder. Suddenly it popped open and she dropped to the ground. She looked up to see that the two bugs had cut open the back enough to release her. She looked over at the boy. He was still cowering on the ground.

She got up and began running for the exit. "JOKER! WE'VE GOT COMPANY!"

She reached the main room again to see her comrade cornered behind the roulette table. She glared at the witch girl sneaking up on her friend. She reached into her jester costume and pulled out three green balls with purple stripes on them.

She held two in one hand and one in the other.

"Okay, everyone! Keep your eyes on the balls now!" She began juggling the three balls. Barrel, who'd snuck in behind her, began clapping.

"How do you get them to stay up like that?" He wondered aloud. Lock and Shock glared at him.

"That's not all, folks!" Suddenly, she through one ball underneath her right arm and flicked it up to make the circle bigger. Suddenly the balls were multiplying. The three trick or treaters looked on in interest as the balls became more and more numerous.

"There's no way she'll be able to hold them up much longer." Lock assured them.

"I don't know. She seems to have a pretty good handle on them." Barrel licked his lolly again.

Suddenly, the green eyed girl smiled a dark grin. She threw her arms up in the air. "Bouncing Barrage!" All the balls that had been going around in circles were suddenly zooming all over the casino, ricocheting off of every surface.

Lock and Shock dove into the roulette table, hoping to avoid contact with the flurry of balls. Barrel got hit a few times before making it.

"Let's go!" Jesta grabbed Joker's hand as he flung open the trap door.

"Wait!" She stopped. "I think I found it." She ran back to the chamber and grabbed the entire cabinet and began running back down the hallway. The flurry of balls was slowly reverting back to the original three, but the trick or treaters had yet to venture out from their hiding spots.

Just as she cleared the corridor, four very big, very fast, UFO bugs began speeding after the intruder. Jesta screamed. She couldn't help it. Those things were at least twice the size of the last ones.

Joker heard her scream. He pulled out a purple ball with a green stripe and prepared to leave a surprise for who ever was following her. She was running toward him when she tripped over a crack in the floor. The cabinet hurtled into the darkness below the trap door.

"Jesta!" He tossed the ball up into the air and pulled out a three pronged scepter that looked a lot like his hat. As the ball came back down, he swung the scepter at it like a baseball bat. Sm-ACK!

The first silver bug was no more and the one behind it fell to the ground in a jerking motion and continued spasming. The ball bounced back toward him and he swung again, destroying the third bug and barely touching the fourth, as it had entered the room and was now able to maneuver out of the way. It reached the ceiling and was preparing to do a diving attack on the boy.

Joker ran forward a few steps and grabbed Jesta's hand. "GO!" They both jumped into the hole. The UFO tried to follow them, but was too big for the trap door. As it rammed the floor, it exploded in a puff of green smoke.

The trick or treaters finally came out of hiding. Shock looked around at the ruined casino with a shiver of apprehension. If Oogie saw this… There were round imprints on most of the walls and almost every surface and four of Oogie's favorite "toys" were now scrap metal. Punishment would be pleasure after he was done with what he'd do if he could see this place now.

Barrel walked to where the two had disappeared. "Where did they go?"

Lock, angry that they had gotten away, began fuming. "Down the trap door, stupid! They probably went back to town. I bet there was a reward for… what ever it was they took."

Shock shook her head. "They aren't from town. I've never seen them before." She looked back at Lock. "What was in that thing anyway?"

Lock shrugged. "Beats me. I thought you took it." Shock shook her head again.

Barrel continued licking his lollypop. "I hope they come back. I was having fun before the booby traps set themselves off."

Lock and Shock stared at his spacey expression for a minute before bursting out laughing. He looked at them sideways. "What?"

-:-

Down in the dark corridor, Jesta and Joker where listening to the infamous trick or treaters. Jesta turned to her partner.

"Joker? Why didn't you just…?" He looked at her, confused.

"They're just kids, Jesta. And they already belong to a holiday, at that. We're not supposed to hurt people. That's what this is all about, remember? Helping, not hurting."

The girl shrugged. "Well, at least we got it. I thought for sure that moron would've used it by now… I guess he didn't know how. Are we going to tell Fool we got it?"

Joker scoffed. "No way. Let him think what he wants. After we do some remodeling, we might let him in on it. So far, he hasn't helped us at all."

"But what about Harlequin? And Masqueradia? Are we gonna tell them?"

There was a pause. "Maybe. After we… do what we gotta do… we might be able to. I don't like leaving the other Gypsies totally out of this, but for right now, we need to make sure nobody interferes."

"Well, it won't do us any good if we can't find Piper and the others. We can't re-make those holidays without the proper holiday leaders."

Joker smirked. "But there will be some we won't be remaking at all." Jesta smiled at this. That would be their punishment for the thief. His holiday world would never be resurrected. Giggles where heard in the Hinterlands as two shadowy figures climbed out of a cavern near the gate and began slinking through the forest.

Meanwhile, back in Halloween Town, Jack was busily getting the last adjustments ready for the fast approaching holiday. The mayor had been less on edge this year than most years. The whole town had taken the quiet of the Boogie trio to be a good omen. No news is good news, right?

But in the back of Jack's skull he couldn't help but feel that something wasn't quite right. He didn't know what was going on or where, but somewhere close by, he could feel something had changed in his holiday. His holiday; the day he was to guard over and see to it's perfection and well being. To make each one better than the last. Something had changed; and Jack wasn't sure that it was a good thing.

-:-

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	2. What was in that cabinet, anyway?

I thank my two reviewers for their very kind word! Here is a chapter for you, and thank you again!

BTW: I might not have mentioned it before, but I don't own TNBC. Yah. Sucks, don't it?

-:-

Deep in the Hinterlands, where there was hardly any color for all the fog and mist, there was a small enclosure where a caravan of a very strange variety was gathered. Deep in the uncharted depths of the hinterlands, there was a band of Holiday Gypsies.

Now, it seems strange that there would even be such a thing. Who ever heard of people moving from one Holiday to another? Didn't they have their own Holiday's to inhabit?

Well, they did. Once. But no longer. Their little caravan was made of creatures and people who had lost their Holiday Worlds. Either, people had changed and had forgotten them, or they had fought over the proper customs and were rewarded by having the holiday itself torn apart.

But, either way, they had no home to return to. And as two multicolored specs began sneaking towards the camp, they planned to change all that.

"Hold it steady. We're going to be lucky if it hasn't busted apart already!"

"Easy for you to say! I swear this end has to be twenty pounds heavier!"

"Then lets hurry up and get it into the wagon! Before someone sees us!"

They scrambled up some retractable steps and into a small wagon and slammed the door behind them.

Joker pushed it into the middle of the room. "Okay, first things first. We need to get it open." Jesta wiggled the rusty lock on the front.

"That shouldn't be too hard. This thing looks like it's ready to fall off anyway."

"Appearances aren't always what they seem. Besides, there might be another trap inside." He walked around it for a moment. "I think it's best if we sit on top of it while opening it."

Jesta shrugged. "Okay. I'll go get the cutters." She paused. "Wait. We don't have cutters. How are we gonna get this thing open?"

Joker shook his head. "Watch." He pulled one of the round bells off of his had and began messing with the triangular flaps. He bent one of them all the way out and winked at Jesta. "We're gonna do this the old fashioned way."

She raised an eyebrow. "Will it be fast enough?"

He shrugged. "We've all waited this long, what's a few more hours?" She sighed.

"Let's get to it then."

-:-

Back at the tree house, the three notorious trick or treaters where having a very interesting conversation.

"…I wonder what was in that thing?" Barrel licked his lollypop again. "I mean, what would two kids want with an old cabinet?"

"What does it matter?" Lock began pulling throwing knives out of the walls so he could throw them again. "What I want to know is what we're going to do about it. We can't just let someone come onto our turf and take something, even if we don't know what it is. It's just not right."

Shock sighed. Since when did he care about what's right? She wasn't in the mood to fight though. She still hadn't had anything to eat. "If you want to do something, you go right ahead. Leave me out of it. I'm not going back down there for all the candy on Halloween."

Lock glared at her. "So you're just going to give up? What's wrong with you? You used to be the most cunning and conniving of us all, Shock, but lately, you're just the drag."

"I'm _flipping _HUNGRY, **OKAY**!" She tossed a mallet in his general direction not really caring if it hit him or not. It did. "If you want to know what was in it so badly, why don't you go ask that doctor? Finkie or Stine or something."

"Finklestein?" Barrel offered.

"That one." She picked up her broom and waved it at Barrel. "If you want to go, you're welcome to it, but I'm not interested. All we've gotta do is wait until Friday and everything will be fine. We don't need what ever was in that ugly white cabinet anyway."

"Well, I wanna know anyway. Curiosity killed the cat and all that junk. Besides, those two might come back for something else. Might as well be ready for the rematch." Lock headed for the door. "Come on, Barrel!"

Barrel looked at Shock for a minute. She nodded and he smiled. "Right behind you!" He was gone.

"Seems like the terrible trio just became the dastardly duo." Shock sighed and shook her head. "I'm SO hungry!" This statement was emphasized by a loud grumbling noise. "GAH!"

-:-

Fool was up. They could tell because he was calling for them.

"What does he want?" Jesta asked nervously. "We haven't done anything this week…"

"I'll handle it. You take over for me, okay?" He handed her the bell and tiptoed outside.

When he opened the door, Fool, a tall skinny man with a red, blue and black jester's suite on, was at the foot of the retractable stairs.

"There you are! Where's Jesta?"

"She's asleep. Or at least she was before you started bellowing." Fool's painted face screwed up in a scowl.

"Don't back sass me! Where were you two last night? I had Masq check up on you and she said you were gone."

'Darn it!' He thought quickly. "Huh? But the only place we went last night was to the gray river on the east side for… personal reasons."

Fool continued eying him suspiciously. "Really? Alright then. Explain why it took you so long. You had to have been gone for almost 4 hours."

"It was really important personal reasons. Look, can we talk about this later? If Jesta wakes up and I'm not in the bunk above her, she'll go into full panic mode again."

Fool visibly cringed. "Alright. But I expect a full explanation when she wakes up."

Joker did a mock salute. "Yes, sir!"

"Right." He began walking toward the center of the camp where there had been a bonfire burning last night, but now there was only smoke and ashes.

Joker turned back into the house. When he shut the door, he leaned back on it. "Phew!"

"Is he suspicious?" Jesta looked up from the look to see his answer.

"Yes, but he doesn't have a clue what he's supposed to be suspicious about. Just tell him we had to make an emergency run to the river last night to wash out your blankets."

"Hey! Why do I have to pretend to be the one who wet the bed?"

"Because he won't believe it if we say I did." He took the bell and continued working at the lock.

"No fair!" She crossed her arms over her green and purple checked chest. "Stupid boys."

-:-

Barrel looked up at the Doctor's manor. For holing up in his lab all the time, the guy sure did have a lot of space. He followed Lock up the front stairs.

"So what are we gonna do? Just go in there and ask him if he's missing a cabinet?"

"No! We're gonna watch him and see if he mentions it."

"That could take a while."

"Nah. Guys like him do things out of memory. They don't easily forget where they put stuff and when they move stuff, then end up trying to move around like things are the way they were for quite a while before they realize they moved it."

"Um… okay?" Barrel followed him to the door. Lock opened it a crack to make sure there was no one near the entrance and rushed in. He hid by the table with and ax in it and motioned for Barrel to follow.

Barrel hid behind Lock. They suddenly heard the pipe groan and an elevator rose out of it. The doctor was in the elevator, talking to Sally, his rag doll daughter.

"…Now as soon as she's finished, I'll need you to show her around, you know. Teach her to cook and keep things organized."

"Alright. I'll see what I can do." She sighed. "But, can't I have just a little more freedom? I mean, it's not like I plan to leave town or anything…"

"Sally, we've discussed this. I don't want you to suddenly start falling apart. You're one of a kind, you know. Too much excitement is especially bad."

"But, Jack…" She began following the doctor to another room.

"Jack is not your creator. I understand you're fond of the boy, but please, just listen to me, alright? Now… back to my new creation…"

Lock motioned upwards. They were going to check upstairs. "He's probably got something in those books about that ugly white cabinet."

They began making their way up the spiral ramp. When they got to the top of the elevator at the top of the spiral, Igor was in the lab, chomping on some Bone Biscuits as usual.

Lock ducked behind a cabinet to the left. Barrel just stood there for a minute before Lock grabbed him. Igor turned to look at the sudden noise, but shrugged when he didn't see anyone there and continued eating his biscuits.

Lock began sneaking around the outer edge of the messy ring of cabinets. He remembered there was a bookshelf nearby… ah! There it is! He began pulling out books and looking at the covers before throwing them aside as useless. '101 ways to train your Creations… nope… How to Enhance Power from Lightning… nuh-uh… The Many Uses Of Frog's Breath… what is this crud?'

Suddenly, Barrel began yanking on Lock's tail. "Lock! Lock!"

"What is it!" He whirled around and came face to face with the misshapen Igor. "Busted!"

"Master! Master! Intruders in the Lab!" The slow creature bumbled his way to a pipe with a speaker on it and began calling out again. "Master!"

"Run for it!" Barrel needed no second invitation. He bolted for the elevator right behind Lock.

They looked down the spiral to see some long shadows heading up. "This way!" Lock grabbed Barrel and they headed the rest of the way up the spiral to Igor's door to his room. The railing had an opening toward the center of the room. Lock and Barrel looked at each other and nodded.

"Ger-on-a-mo!" They ran for the edge and jumped, Barrel waving his arms and legs as they fell from the height.

They landed in someone's long bony arms. They looked up to see Jack glaring down at them.

"And here I thought you three where going to start behaving." He looked up for Shock. "Hmm? Where's the third one?"

"Perhaps she's still in the lab." The doctor called down. "I'll have a look."

"Don't bother." Lock grumped. "Shock didn't come with us." Jack raised an eyebrow.

"It's true." Barrel volunteered. "She's not interested in what was in that cabinet." Lock elbowed him in the ribs. "Ouch!"

"What cabinet?" Jack looked down at the two with genuine curiosity.

"Cabinet? Did he say cabinet? He meant…" Jack's glare stopped Lock before he could think of something good. Lock sighed. "Somebody stole a cabinet from Oogie's lair last night. We don't even know what was in it."

"They were sneaking around down there late last night. There was two of 'em." Barrel explained.

"Hmm… I come over here to see Sally and the Doctor and stumble upon a mystery, or, more appropriately, catch it. What a day."

"Join the club. It's not like we asked to be stolen from."

"What did they look like?" Jack asked.

"They looked really weird. They weren't from town. They both wore these weird hats with three tentacles on them and their clothes looked like green and purple checker boards. Their faces were painted white with some black marks on their eyes." Barrel licked his lollypop again. "And they had lots of bells on their clothes and hats."

"Hmm… doesn't sound like their from Christmas Town, either…"

"Maybe they were from another holiday?" Doctor Finklestein volunteered, rolling down the spiral. "One we haven't seen?"

"Well, they wore green, so they might come from St. Patrick's Day, but I'm really not sure." He set the boys down. "Is there anything else you remember?"

"No." Lock crossed his fingers behind his back. "That's it."

Barrel didn't notice. "We do too know something else! Their names… Oof!" Lock used his tail to swipe Barrel's feet out from underneath him.

"What are their names?" Jack demanded, staring at Lock. He sighed.

"Joker and Jesta," he muttered angrily. He glared daggers at Barrel before they looked at the doctor.

"So, do you know what was in that ugly white cabinet they took?"

"A white cabinet? Mmm… nothing comes to mind… I'll have to look it up."

"That's what we were trying to do," Barrel explained. "But we didn't know what to look for."

"Well, that's all well and fine, but next time, you'd do well just to ask." The doctor guided the group; Lock, Barrel, Jack and Sally; up the stairs to his laboratory. "Now, let's see…"

-:-

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	3. Plans to Crash the Party

-:-

Shock was laying in bed. She didn't have energy for much else. She took a deep breath. Where could Lock had hidden the extra stack of candy?

She thought he'd have kept it in his room. She'd turned it upside down already, but there was no candy to be found. She then searched Barrel's room for it because Barrel didn't know what all was in his room most of the time and there were plenty of good hiding places. But, as luck would have it, the only candy was Barrel's. Shock always took care to give Barrel the most suckers. He was the only one who had the taste for them.

She relaxed on her bed and tried to sleep, but the hunger wouldn't let her. She jumped up and ran to the playroom. "If I can't find the candy, I'll have to find something else to tide me over… until Friday…"

She did a brief count in her head, not that she needed to, because everyone in town knew that there was only 4 days left to Halloween.

She found an old cage in the piles of stuff they had lying around. There was an old moldy lollypop inside it. Shock got an idea.

She could catch some bugs and make a stew. That would tide her over… she looked around the tree house.

There weren't too many bugs left since Oogie Boogie…

She shook her head and continued towards the door. She'd have to go into the graveyard to find some things.

-In the Lab-

The boys hovered closely behind the doctor's chair and he darted left and right between his many stacks of books. Suddenly, he gasped.

"Jack, my boy! I believe I've figured it out. But the answer is pretty cryptic…"

"Just tell us what you can, Doctor," Sally encouraged.

"…Well, I only found one passage in all of my books about it. Here, look for yourself."

He held out a piece of paper that had sketchy handwriting across it. Like someone had scribbled something down in a hurry. "It was put into this book about general information on the Holiday Worlds like a bookmark, but there's nothing important on either page it's between."

"Holidays are the result of the toil and trouble of the creatures that create them. If this is so, why have so many been lost? I have never been able to figure out the riddle, but I've finally found a solution to the problem. I never expected that it would be so simple to create a Holiday World… perhaps too simple. I've locked the machine away for a while. We've already resurrected two holidays. I'm going to study the effects they have on the other holidays and their inhabitants. Perhaps it's better my founder doesn't find the cabinet…" The Doctor looked up. "The rest is worn off or missing. It's probably an entry in a journal somewhere."

"A machine that creates holiday worlds?" Jack scratched his head. "But wouldn't Oogie have used it if he'd had it?"

"We didn't even know it was down there." Barrel interjected.

"Oogie probably thought no one would ever dare try to get into his lair. Usually, they're trying to get out." Lock replied snidely.

"Oogie always felt that Halloween belonged to him anyway. It's likely he didn't want to have to make another world in order to rule. It would be like he was giving up on Halloween Town." Finklestein replied.

"Well, it doesn't look like there's anything we can do about it until we know who has the machine anyway." Sally tugged at the hem of her patchwork dress. "Besides, it doesn't sound dangerous…"

"Yes, but if someone were to create a holiday on a taken date… like October 31st, it could destroy the original holiday…" Finklestein rubbed his chin in thought. "I'm going to see what else I can dig up. Surely someone has to know something about this thing."

"You do that, Doctor. In the meantime, we don't want a panic. Especially this close to Halloween. Everything you've heard, boys, stays in this tower, understand?"

"Of course, Jack. Our lips our sealed." The boys crossed their fingers as Jack glared down at their would-be-innocent faces.

-:-

Joker and Jesta uninterestedly continued picking at the lock.

"Hey, Joker? How much longer is it supposed to be?" Jesta whined.

Joker sighed, letting his shoulders sag. "I don't know."

Jesta rolled onto her back and glared up at the ceiling. "This is so mind-numbingly, gastronomically, undeniably BORING!" Joker shushed her.

"Alright. I think we need a break anyway. Hey! Lets go find out if we're visiting town for the next holiday!"

Jesta's face lit up. "Halloween! The only prankster holiday left! That's the break we need!"

Joker laughed at her sudden burst of enthusiasm. "But it won't be for long until there are more holidays we'll be welcome in."

Jesta shrugged. "Yeah. I know. But it's nice to get both benefits on Halloween."

Joker laughed before they both said what they were thinking. "Tricks AND Treats!"

Joker ran outside to find Fool or Masqueradia. Masq was standing right outside their door, looking like she was about to have knocked. Masqueradia, unlike most of the other people in the caravan, had always been a Holiday Gypsy. Fool had once told them that she was the spirit of all the old masquerade balls that used to go on before "modern times" when no one was interested anymore. She's always in a long white gown, ripped and fringed at the edges, and she always wears a mask. Today, she was wearing a mask with black streaks under her eyes. It was her normal face, meaning nothing had happened today to make her feel any particular way.

"Hey, Masq!" They said in unison.

"Oh… hello. Fool was just looking for you."

Joker shrugged. "We'll catch up with him in a minute… but first, we have a question."

Jesta smiled at the two eyeless holes that Masq always looked out from. "We want to see if were doing anything… special in about 4 days."

Masq smiled, causing her mask to change into her happy mask with a sun over her right eye and little sunbeams coming out towards her mouth.

"Actually, Fool and I were thinking of attending a certain party, yes."

Joker and Jesta smiled knowingly at each other. "You mean crash a certain party." This caused Masq to laugh.

"Whatever you say, guys." She floated happily towards the forest.

-:-

Well, I'd like to take this time to apologize for all the people waiting for this story to continue. I wanted to, but my monitor was fried. (I've been saying that a lot lately…) Freak lightning storm… you know the story.

If you want another update I'm going to require three reviews. Thanks!


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